Glossary: Sachsenhausen

lso called SACHSENHAUSEN-ORANIENBURG, one of the major German Nazi
concentration camps, located near the village of Sachsenhausen, 2 miles (3 km) north
of Oranienburg, northwest of Berlin. The camp was established in 1936 for north
Germany as a part of the system that would include Buchenwald (for central Germany)
and Dachau (for southern Germany). Its first great influx of prisoners began in 1938,
after the November Kristallnacht, when 10,000 Jews were rounded up from Berlin,
Hamburg, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania and shipped briefly to Sachsenhausen. The
camp's inmate population fluctuated between about 11,000 and 48,000 during World
War II. Of the total of some 200,000 prisoners who went through Sachsenhausen,
100,000 died there, principally from disease, execution, and overwork in local
armaments factories; many of the remainder were transferred to other camps.
Sachsenhausen was liberated on April 27, 1945, by advance troops of the Soviet
army.